False or Dubious Claims about a Suicide Letter

This post raises the issue of disturbing claims about a suicide letter in the deaths of my brother Mark and Dale Tarapacki immediately following their suspicious truck fires. In both cases, death was ultimately ruled “accidental,” in spite of the suspicious circumstances surrounding their truck fires.  So it is a matter of concern that in each case one or more individuals claimed to have knowledge of a suicide letter.

As mentioned in a previous post (November 23, 2013), on the very evening of his death, just hours after his horrific truck fire, my brother’s 23-year old daughter Christie told me over the telephone that Mark had left her a suicide letter.  Claiming that her father had in fact told her he no longer wanted to live, she stated that the suicide letter he had written began, “By the time you read this, I will be dead.”  After I reported this information to the N. Y. S. Police, Christie was questioned by Inv. Edward Kalfas but denied knowing anything about a suicide letter.  Mark’s wife Susan also told Inv. Kalfas that she too was unaware of any suicide letter (see also police report).  Yet how would Mark’s daughter have failed to mention this purported suicide letter to her mother?  Would she also have failed to mention to her mother her phone conversation with me?  Although I asked the State Police investigator to look into this issue, he simply dropped it.  According to a nephew, Mark’s wife later reportedly changed her story and told another relative that he really did leave a suicide letter (see post of November 23, 2013).  No suicide letter was ever produced.  It is safe to say none ever existed.

In Dale Tarapacki’s case, according to a reliable source, who felt strongly that he had not taken his own life, someone claimed to have knowledge of a suicide letter.  Another reliable source made an even stronger claim about a suicide letter allegedly left by Tarapacki.  Yet the circumstances of Tarapacki’s death in a very suspicious truck fire, which has some striking similarities to my brother’s (see posts of July 23, August 24, and September 21, 2016; February 26, April 30, June 13, November 30, and December 31, 2017), also clearly rule out suicide.  Since the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s office denied my request for the police report and other relevant materials on Tarapacki’s death, except for the fire investigator’s report (see posts of March 19 and May 19, 2016), it is not clear if they actually investigated this issue.

It is worth pondering what motives a person or persons may have in making claims about a suicide letter when the victim did not leave one.